Every time I think I’ve discovered a flaw with Creative’s Sound BlasterX H5 headset, I dig a little deeper and discover a strength, instead. After a week and a half of testing the H5 against my Sennheiser 598 headphones, it’s been difficult for me to spot many weaknesses in Creative’s newest gaming headset. It sounds fantastic, nearly as good as my more expensive cans. It’s light and comfortable for multiple hours of wear. It’s durable, with a bendable steel frame. And it has a detachable mic that manages to cut out background noise and capture clear, quality voice.
If you're sick of the trend of gaming headsets piling on RGB LEDs to bump up the price—and I am—pay attention to the H5. It’s a no-nonsense, high quality analog headset, and the first pair of cans I’ve tested this year that I think might usurp the Kingston HyperX Cloud as our favorite gaming headset. Right now, its only real drawback is a launch MSRP of $130, but that’s unlikely to be the price it settles at when Amazon has the headset in stock.
The design of the BlasterX H5 is a big step up from Creative’s older headsets, like the plasticky Recon3D Omega. It’s surprisingly light given its steel frame, and even after a couple hours never put too much pressure on my hears or the top of my head. The steel frame is also extremely bendable—you can bend it completely flat without damaging it or disturbing its shape. The earcups don’t rotate, so they’re not perfect travel cans, but they have a nice loose swivel that feels sturdy and adjusts well to my head.
That design doesn’t much matter if the sound quality isn’t up to snuff, but to my ears the H5 sounds fantastic playing through a Sound Blaster X7 USB DAC. I have my Sennheiser 598s plugged into that same DAC, and alternated between the two headsets while listening to FLACs and playing a few games. I definitely don’t have the most discerning ears, and I’m sure I'm missing out on some subtleties that hardcore audiophiles would spot between the two headsets. Having said that, it was often hard for me to perceive a difference between the two. I’d describe the Sennheisers as sounding slightly more open and full, but switching between the two I never noticed a dramatic difference. It makes sense that the Sennheiser’s would sound slightly more open, since the 598s are open-back headphones. The H5 is a “ported” closed design, which Creative says provides a bit more bass punch without sound leakage.